Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) Read online

  MARCUS RICHARDSON

  ALEA JACTA EST

  The Future History of America: Book I

  © 2011 Marcus Richardson.

  All Rights Reserved.

  2nd Printing, November 2013.

  3rd Printing, August 2014.

  This is a work of fiction. The people and events in this book are written for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to living and/or deceased people is purely coincidental and not intentional.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent by the author.

  For Sara

  Without your unflinching love, support, and patience

  this book would never have been written.

  Books by Marcus Richardson

  The Future History of America

  Alea Jacta Est

  The Wildfire Saga

  Apache Dawn

  False Prey (Novella)

  For information on my upcoming books,

  events, news and more, please visit the following:

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  http://thefreeholder.wordpress.com

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE - The Great Blackout

  SARASOTA - The Calm Before the Storm

  ARIZONA - Scorched Earth

  SARASOTA - Darkness Falls

  CHICAGO - Deceptive Alliance

  ARIZONA - The Firestorm

  SARASOTA - The Uncertain Home Front

  WASHINGTON - The Day After

  WASHINGTON – COG

  SARASOTA – Bad News

  ARIZONA – The Regulators

  WASHINGTON – The Slippery Slope

  CHICAGO – Rise of the Brotherhood

  IRAN – Escalation

  CHINA – The Dragon Stirs

  CHICAGO – Crossing the Rubicon

  NORAD – North American Air Defense Command

  SARASOTA – The Clock is Ticking

  FIST OF THE JIHAD – The Fist Strikes

  IRAN – Delivery Overnight, Guaranteed

  SARASOTA – Greetings and Salutations

  ARIZONA – Hold the Line

  SARASOTA – Roma Victa

  IRAN – Finger of Allah

  NORAD – To Reap the Whirlwind

  CHICAGO – First Blood

  SARASOTA – The Reluctant Caesar

  ARIZONA – Revelations

  CHINA – To Prepare for War

  NORAD – The Trials of Leadership

  SARASOTA – The Shopping List

  SARASOTA – Stacking the Deck

  CHICAGO – Rebels

  NORAD – Aim Small, Miss Small

  U.S.S. THEODORE ROOSEVELT – The Big Stick

  SARASOTA – Foundations

  U.S.S. THEODORE ROOSEVELT – No Quarter

  SARASOTA – Visitors

  NORAD – The Enemy Within

  CHINA – First Strike

  SARASOTA – Darwin’s Game

  FIST OF THE JIHAD – Fanning the Flames

  NORAD – Drastic Measures

  SARASOTA – Shopping Spree

  SARASOTA – To Secure Peace, Prepare for War

  ARIZONA – Line in the Sand

  SARASOTA – Dark of Night

  NORAD – Knife in the Back

  U.S.S. THEODORE ROOSEVELT – Haze Gray and Under Way

  SARASOTA – Calling Down the Thunder

  NORAD – The Speech Heard ‘Round the World

  SARASOTA – Daggers and Decisions

  U.S.S. THEODORE ROOSEVELT – The Big Stick Strikes Back

  SARASOTA – Of Pipers and Whiskey

  THE LEADERS – Enemies, Foreign and Domestic

  SARASOTA – Voyage of the Tarpon Whistler

  CHINA – A Dragon’s Patience

  SARASOTA – Day of the Dog

  SARASOTA – No Man Left Behind

  ARIZONA – A Rifle Behind Every Rock

  NORAD – Kingmaker

  SARASOTA – The Dogs of War

  U.S.S. THEODORE ROOSEVELT – Haze Gray and Under Way

  THE REGULATORS – Scorched Earth

  SARASOTA – Fight or Flight

  ALEA JACTA EST

  PROLOGUE

  The Great Blackout

  Three years ago...

  ERIK LARSSON SAT behind the wheel of his car, waiting at a red light. It was just another Thursday afternoon for the rest of the world, but for him, it was another day without landing a job.

  It had been two months since he and his fiancée Brin Hideyo had moved to Florida’s “Sun Coast” and he’d so far been unsuccessful in finding a way to help pay the bills. He knew it wasn’t for lack of trying, but it depressed him nonetheless. She had been recruited the previous winter by a big pharmaceutical company, so that when the two had finished school she was ready to start work. He planned to start his quest for a master’s degree in a few weeks. Everyone back home told him he could find work as a teacher in the meantime. It was time for the Baby Boomers to retire after all, and all the states were going to be in sore need of new teachers.

  A small beep brought him out of his own self-pity. The orange “Service Engine Soon” light had just come to life on the dashboard. Again. Erik sighed. This was the second time in as many weeks that the car had begged to be taken to a service station—the last trip had cost him $500 for a fuel injector cleaning. He bit back the comment he was about to make about the car.

  This thing does have almost 150,000 miles on it…I’m surprised it hasn’t died on me by now. Just keep it going a little longer, he told himself. Oh well. That's what credit cards are for.

  Erik sighed again and the light turned. Erik pushed down on the accelerator and continued on his way to the local giant-size chain department store. The car was just going to have to wait its turn. He had a list of things they needed for the new apartment and he and Brin simply could not deal without this stuff any longer. He thought once again how strange it was that she was out working while he stayed home to clean and tidy up the apartment, get the groceries, cook…the role reversal seemed strange. It was a little unnerving. But at least they didn't have any friends that would require explanations yet.

  I’m domesticated, Erik thought as he pulled into the store parking lot and began the hunt for a spot. When he found a space and pulled in, he reached to turn off the radio. He had been listening—somewhat—to the local AM station broadcasting the nationally syndicated conservative talk show host Malcolm Hide.

  Hide was lambasting someone in California about the pathetic state of political affairs. The radio suddenly went silent. His hand was almost to the dial; he hadn’t touched it yet. The car was still rumbling in idle, cool air conditioning blowing against his face. He looked around the parking lot for a few seconds, waiting. Nothing. He looked at the time on the clock—4:17pm.

  “Okaaay.” He switched to another local station, this one from Tampa. Erik hadn’t heard of this local guy before, but he was also talking about liberals dragging California into the abyss. Then the host stopped mid-sentence and started talking about some sort of power outage being reported in New York. The man commented tha
t none of the TV superpowers, CNN, MSNBC, or FOX were covering the breaking story yet. He quickly wondered aloud if terrorism might be involved.

  Erik held his breath and switched back to Hide’s show. Still nothing. Just as he was about to switch back to the local guy, Hide came back on, sounding very excited.

  “—so we can see again. I don’t know if you can tell me if we’re on the air or not? I don’t know either…okay, well folks, if you can hear us, that’s news to me. The lights here in Manhattan just went out and we’ve lost power, but thanks to a back-up generator, we have emergency lights. I don’t know if we’re still broadcasting or not—hey, Mike, do we still have the ex-governor on line four? No? Well, see if you can get him back.”

  Fascinated, Erik listened to the show while the host talked with producers. They didn’t know they were still on the air. Erik leaned in towards the radio a bit to listen…after all, it was breaking news. He ignored the curious looks of the few people as they walked past his car towards the store. Erik was raised in Upstate New York, so no matter where he was in the country, he still paid attention when the Big Apple was mentioned. It was a habit.

  Erik sat in the air conditioned car for a few more speculation filled minutes. Lower Manhattan was out…there was a fire at a power plant somewhere near New York City. No, it was in up-state New York. Now all of Manhattan was out—reports were coming in that part of Greater New York was out. Then, parts of New Jersey. No one knew what had happened or why.

  The last time something like this had happened was back in 2003 and before that, September 11, 2001. The same dark feeling in the pit of his stomach settled in on this sunny day in southern Florida.

  His first thoughts now, like then, had been about his family. Where were they and were they safe? He could see himself in his mind’s eye: he had paused to check off where his parents and sister were. Everyone had been well away from the city, mom and dad at their cabin on Lake Champlain, his sister in Virginia at grad school. Today was much the same. His parents were still in Upstate, his sister, now married, was in Maryland.

  Erik had an overwhelming urge to get home. He wanted to see the news on TV. He had to get inside and shut the doors, seal himself in some place secure. I must have lived in a castle or something in a previous life.

  Erik forced himself to focus on what was being said over the radio. So far it was only reports about the power loss and speculation about what caused the outage. Nothing further was mentioned of smoke or fires or attacks or anything. The rational part of his mind convinced Erik to just go ahead and find what he was here to get and go home. Chances are, by then someone would have learned something and the news channels would have video of the unfolding drama.

  Wow, am I that far gone that this is exciting to me? I need to find a job.

  Erik quickly went down his shopping list and picked up the cleaning supplies, food, and printer paper he needed, then practically ran back to his car, snapping on the radio first. The news was pretty much the same, but just about every radio station was talking about it now, including the sports talk programs. He drove home listening to the updates, waiting for the other shoe to drop; waiting for someone to say the unspeakable words: was it a terrorist attack? He couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to be in downtown New York at that moment.

  Erik pulled into the parking lot of his apartment on the other side of town. He passed workers installing a big brick pedestal-mounted sign that read ‘Colonial Gardens’. The apartment complex was only a little over a quarter built, so there was always a chance that some construction workers might leave a random nail or something on the ground, ready to puncture a tire. Luckily most of the buildings around their apartment were complete. Only the three big multi-story buildings on the south side of the complex and the one in the middle were still under construction. He carefully found a spot near his apartment and slowly pulled in, half expecting to run over a nail.

  He put the old Buick in park and listened to the reports with new interest. Now the power was out as far away as Detroit and Cincinnati. Even parts of Canada were affected. It looked like half the East was out, from Detroit and Cincinnati to New York, then up to New England and over the border up into Canada. Philly and D.C. were spared, as was Chicago, but just about everything in between and north was knocked off-line.

  Erik whistled at the sheer magnitude of the power outage, then grabbed his stuff and went inside. By now, someone would have something to talk about. Erik felt slightly guilty about looking forward to this bit of morbid ‘entertainment’. But, it was too early for football and nobody cared about hockey this far south, so...

  He had a stocked fridge, all the snacks and soda and beer he needed, a comfortable couch and an exciting news story. Brin was out of town on her training trip. Job or no job, his evening was set. At least he had electricity and his fiancée, was safely in Atlanta. Thank goodness the power is still on there, Erik thought.

  THANKS BE TO Allah,” said Hakim Sharif Hassan and smiled at the television. He sat in his air conditioned apartment in the bad side of Lincoln Park. It was one of the sections of Chicago which most decent people tried to avoid. At this moment, he loved it. The young man from Iran watched the incessant news reports about the Great Blackout with barely contained glee.

  “Now you Imperialist dogs will know what it is to be hot,” he commented sourly, thinking of his family back home. They few electrical luxuries like the air conditioner that spewed arctic air into his room. Hakim's mother and sisters suffered through heat and cold on a daily basis isolated as they were in the mountainous highlands of old Persia.

  At least he had taken care of them somewhat when he joined the Fist of the Jihad. It was a splinter cell of Al Qaeda that placed the majority of its operatives as sleeper cells in the United States and other Satan-worshiping western nations.

  The Fist took care of its own. When a Brother of the Fist was killed or killed himself in the name of Allah, the Brother’s family is set up for life with generous donations from concerned benefactors. They had many connections and almost as many financial pipelines. There were a lot of people out there besides Al Qaeda that would like to see America fall from its high horse. Communists. Anarchists. Neo-Fascists. The list was nearly endless. They all contributed, then let the operatives of the Fist take the heat, the fall, the pressure. That was fine by Hakim. He'd be happy to take the glory. And the cash that went with it wasn't bad either.

  When the Holy Osama had wrought destruction upon the Twin Evils in New York City, the Fist was there. Five of the hijackers were sworn members of the Fist. Hakim only lamented the fact that he himself was not chosen to fly one of the planes right down the Americans’ throats on that glorious day of vengeance. His family could be living in a palace right now.

  The current news channel put up a graphic of the affected areas, then began to criticize the government for allowing the U.S. power grid to be controlled by only three main power hubs. One for the East, one for the West, and one in Texas. If a hub failed, as evidently it had in New York, the potential for the entire grid it served to fail was enormous. Hakim stared in wonder at the graphic for a second before grabbing his pad of paper and a dull pencil. He quickly scratched down notes in Arabic.

  Praise Allah! Here the stupid Americans were actually telling him what had happened, how, and what might happen in the future if one or more grids went down. The fools were giving him all the information he needed.

  Hakim was downright giddy by the time the news channel went to a commercial. “Thank you, CNN,” he said reverently. An idea was forming in his head. The Fist knew that one way to humble the Americans for pillaging Afghanistan and Iraq was to cripple their power systems. They knew many details about the American infrastructure, but this revelation that America was divided into three large grids, with three main hubs to control everything…it was pure Divine intervention.

  “Allah is great!” He intoned and retrieved a cold beer from the beat up fridge. He looked at the can for a second,
a pang of guilt reverberating through his dark mind. “What the Imam does not know, cannot harm him. I am of the Fist…I am above normal rules, for my life is sacred to Allah,” he said in a mockery of his swearing in oath. He convinced himself once again that what he was about to do was perfectly acceptable to his Islamic teachings. He quickly drained the watery American beer and pitched the empty on to the pile of other cans in the corner of the kitchen.

  Behind him in the living room, CNN had gone back to New York, showing scenes of the growing darkness and the unlit buildings looming above the millions of people crowding the streets in an effort to walk home or just get out of the city. Hakim ached to see a bomb go off—even just a small one—in the middle of all those densely packed people. A single man with some dynamite could slay hundreds, then kill thousands in the stampede. Hakim sat back in his chair and sighed over missed opportunities. He hoped his brothers in arms were paying attention.

  Night was falling in New York City, without power on one of the hottest days of the year. In the post 9-11 world, the reporter was saying, people were more apt to panic and get out of town than wait around for the lights to come back on. Speculation mounted about when the looting and violence might start.

  “You swine automatically assume the worst in your own people. No wonder this country is so polluted that other nations choke on your fumes,” Hakim said, sipping his second beer. Details mattered little to Hakim when it came to his religious belief and his world view. After all, Allah was with Islam, so Allah must be against everyone else, no? People who refused to accept this Truth were fools and deserved no mercy.

  Hakim finished his second beer and tossed the empty can over his shoulder to rattle on the floor. He wiped the froth from his jet black mustache. For a second, he considered shaving it. The Imam demanded facial hair. That was what he had always been taught Allah wanted as well. But now...a plan was forming in his mind. He would need to change, to adopt the ways of America a little more. He began writing down more notes. An idea was forming in his head.